Notes: Loyola helped generate 'some of best crowds' for UE basketball games

Once charter members in the Midwestern City Conference, the University of Evansville and University of Loyola Chicago are again league rivals.

Loyola officially accepted its Missouri Valley Conference invitation on Friday and will join for the upcoming basketball season.

"Loyola brought some of our best crowds to Roberts Stadium in the 1980s," recalled former Evansville athletic director Jim Byers, who worked closely with officials at Loyola and Butler to form the MCC in 1979.

The conference later changed names, becoming the Midwestern Collegiate Conference and, still later, the Horizon League. Loyola remained in the Horizon League until Friday, while Evansville left for the MVC in 1994.

UE has a 20-16 record against Loyola all-time in men's basketball. The Aces and Ramblers last met in a 2005 BracketBusters Challenge game at Roberts Stadium, which was followed by a return contest the next season in Chicago. Loyola won both.

"They had some guys who had great personalities and brought out a love/hate relationship with our fans," Byers said. "They always had a free-spirited and very talented group of guys. We always had a great relationship with Loyola during our years together."

-- When it came to adding Loyola to the MVC, commissioner Doug Elgin didn't see the institution's private school status as a major factor.

"That's because we've never really been divided by public and private school issues in our league," Elgin said.

Loyola restores the MVC's public-private split nonetheless now that Creighton is off to the Big East Conference, with Bradley and Drake joining the University of Evansville in that category.

"Perhaps more important than that was the character of the institution — its academic qualities and commitment to students," said Evansville president Thomas Kazee, a participant in Loyola's campus visit by the MVC. "I came away very impressed with that commitment. It seems Loyola shares the values of schools like UE."

-- Kazee described the MVC's presidents council, the league's decision-making body, as happy with a 10-member conference.

"That doesn't mean we'd never consider expansion," he said. "It has implications with scheduling and travel."

With 10 basketball-playing institutions, the MVC's basketball regular-season champions are determined in a round-robin format — each team plays the others both home and away.

"That works well for us," Kazee said. "On the other hand, if we look down the road and somewhere decide that having two more schools to get up to 12 certainly could be done, we'd only do that if we felt we were adding considerable value to the conference."

-- Aces fans will notice a familiar face on Loyola's sidelines next season.

The school's men's basketball coach is Porter Moser, who went 51-67 while holding the same position at Illinois State from 2003-2007. Moser led Loyola to a 15-16 record last season and seventh-place finish in the Horizon League.

"I think the brand regionally with the Valley in these areas with Illinois State, Southern Illinois and Bradley specifically it has a high brand name, and I just think it ups our profile," Moser said.

Loyola also recently hired Sheryl Swoopes as its women's basketball coach. Swoopes was the WNBA's first officially signed player and won the league's MVP award three times.

-- Dallas Baptist is set to join the MVC as a baseball-only member in 2014, a move the league's baseball coaches expected to balance scheduling with a ninth weekend series. But the sport is missing from Loyola's athletic profile, meaning the MVC will remain at eight baseball-playing members next year.

Each of the Ramblers' other programs will join the MVC except men's volleyball, which will remain in the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association.